Chapter 9

E-commerce and Financial Transactions

For most artists and record labels, the ultimate goal is selling a product, especially recordings and concert tickets. To do this, it is necessary to get into e-commerce: having a retail presence on the Web. The first decision involves whether to “set up shop” or leave it to the experts. This chapter will cover the transactional options for selling products both through your web site and via third-party retailers. Still, as of 2011, two-thirds of all albums sold were in physical form, which means even the novice musician needs to sell CDs, and not just digital downloads.

There are many online retail stores that handle either physical product, digital downloads, or both. Should you decide to do it ...

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